Hello All!
This is going to be a fun post by Tony and Priscilla.
Summary of activities
On Wednesday, we went back to minister to the OPU students. We had a great time hanging out with students and developing relationships. It was very encouraging to see most of the same students come eagerly to greet us. Even though we didn’t have as many gospel conversations as the day before, we are still glad to get to know them as much as we can.
On Thursday, our team visited Osaka University for the second time. Overall, it was a good time to build friendships with Japanese students – some that we met already on Tuesday and others that we just met for the first time. It was a good balance of conversation time, mixed with different fun activities. We spent time in their classroom, ate lunch with them, hung out together (chatting, playing football, playing UNO), sang karaoke, and ate sushi together for dinner.
We hope that many of the students we interacted with on these two days can connect with Hamadera Bible Church members this coming Saturday (our day trip to Kyoto) and next Sunday (our team will host an American party).
Prayer Requests
In Wednesday morning, Tony’s host family dad , Oumi-san, jammed with Eric. They did a duet! Eric was playing on a cello that Oumi-san made. Oumi-san is really talented and has superb hobbies! (making trains and making cello). For the rest of the morning, the team met and finished constructing the 200 goodie bags that we provide with students. Also, we finished organizing Okada’s sensei’s personal library.
This is going to be a fun post by Tony and Priscilla.
Summary of activities
On Wednesday, we went back to minister to the OPU students. We had a great time hanging out with students and developing relationships. It was very encouraging to see most of the same students come eagerly to greet us. Even though we didn’t have as many gospel conversations as the day before, we are still glad to get to know them as much as we can.
On Thursday, our team visited Osaka University for the second time. Overall, it was a good time to build friendships with Japanese students – some that we met already on Tuesday and others that we just met for the first time. It was a good balance of conversation time, mixed with different fun activities. We spent time in their classroom, ate lunch with them, hung out together (chatting, playing football, playing UNO), sang karaoke, and ate sushi together for dinner.
We hope that many of the students we interacted with on these two days can connect with Hamadera Bible Church members this coming Saturday (our day trip to Kyoto) and next Sunday (our team will host an American party).
Prayer Requests
- Pray God would open up the doors for our team to share the gospel in simple English to Japanese students with whom we interact.
- Pray for our team’s faithfulness and energy on the trip, that whether we are chatting with students, or throwing a football, that we would be worshipful to God and put maximum effort to please Him in all things
- Pray that God would allow for Japanese students to interact with Hamadera Bible Church members – to meet Christians that share the same culture and language.
- Pray for our team member, Eric, who has had a long-lasting sore throat and cough. Since our ministry consists of mostly talking, please pray for a fast recovery.
In Wednesday morning, Tony’s host family dad , Oumi-san, jammed with Eric. They did a duet! Eric was playing on a cello that Oumi-san made. Oumi-san is really talented and has superb hobbies! (making trains and making cello). For the rest of the morning, the team met and finished constructing the 200 goodie bags that we provide with students. Also, we finished organizing Okada’s sensei’s personal library.
In the afternoon, we went OPU and played some American football. The students took us to a special Japanese arcade. The place could almost be considered a mini amusement park. We split up into three groups and each group played three different types of games. The game Tony enjoyed the most was Wild River Slash or as the Japanese worker said Wildo.
It was a story about a mother who had lost all her children and she made dolls to replace them. However, she then wanted the dolls to come alive and in order to do so she had to steal people’s hearts. One of the workers in charge of exchanging tickets and not in charge of the doll ride saw Shannon and volunteered to be her group’s guide for the ride. He had a blast scaring Shannon and the rest of Shannon’s group. One of the students really liked Shannon and when she was scared she clawed Shannon really tightly. At the end of the ride, the last scaring event was to make the riders feel that they had their hearts being grabbed. However, since Shannon is a lot taller than the typical Japanese girl, the air gun hit Shannon’s stomach instead of her chest. After the arcade, we ate Osaka Okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake.
I was glad to be able to sit down and have meaningful conversations. At my table, we talked a little bit about creation verses evolution. From what I can gather, most of the Japanese students believe in evolution and even really heard of creation before. Hopefully, the Japanese students were challenged to ponder about macro-evolution cannot exist.
At the end of the day, we took the train back to the church and Beland almost lost half of the team. The Japanese subway is very crowded and everyone is moving really fast trying to get to the trains. It is very easy to lose sight of the person in front of you. Due to the fast pace movement, Justine or Justin Japanese people would call her did not time to take a picture with a Shinny poster. To encourage you even more for those who are reading this far, funny quotes are listed.
At the end of the day, we took the train back to the church and Beland almost lost half of the team. The Japanese subway is very crowded and everyone is moving really fast trying to get to the trains. It is very easy to lose sight of the person in front of you. Due to the fast pace movement, Justine or Justin Japanese people would call her did not time to take a picture with a Shinny poster. To encourage you even more for those who are reading this far, funny quotes are listed.
Funny Quotes:
“If you could be any Disney character which would you be?” -Shannon asked Ashley
“Jasmine.” –Ashley
“It’s because she’s married to an Indian guy isn’t it?” –Shannon
Tony is pretty interesting when it comes to throwing footballs. Let’s just say that many people stand clear when he has the ball. When we were in the parking lot, Tony threw the football, and it almost hit Mike. Mike ducked and it hit somebody’s car really loudly. Talking about the incident in the car, Daisuke says laughing,“ Absolutely terrible. So bad.”
“If you could be any Disney character which would you be?” -Shannon asked Ashley
“Jasmine.” –Ashley
“It’s because she’s married to an Indian guy isn’t it?” –Shannon
Tony is pretty interesting when it comes to throwing footballs. Let’s just say that many people stand clear when he has the ball. When we were in the parking lot, Tony threw the football, and it almost hit Mike. Mike ducked and it hit somebody’s car really loudly. Talking about the incident in the car, Daisuke says laughing,“ Absolutely terrible. So bad.”